Baking Soda
by Eevee
Summary: England bakes; France despairs.


. The first time England tried feeding his scones to France was, as most idiotic things anyone of their kind ever did, a consequence of human folly.

The diplomacy of nations was a simple one. There were no treaties, no threats, no alliances, no bartering; there was blood and sometimes marriages, friendships and enmities. And if some such bonds were too deep-seated for the floating politics of a state, well, then there was always the solution of civility.

France and England had always known each other too well for civility to be an option. France had told that to the cabinet, that the demand to be _civil_ to England was preposterious, because England would know that it was a lie and take it as worse of an insult than any amount of frank truth that France would usually deliver. Theirs was a loyal antagonism, carefully nurtured through centuries of personal disagreements and political rivalries. Being _nice_ to England, no, no, that was beyond impossible: it was absurd.

And it was the story of how France found himself in England's sitting room, on a day which he supposed was remarkably fine for Britain, and how he picked up what looked like it was meant to be some kind of baked goods. It had the paleness of something baked in an insufficiently heated oven, and refused to yield when he tried to press his fingers together. It sat like a piece of wood in his tentative grip. France looked first to the other buns on the elaborately carved silver serving plate, and then up at England who was standing across from the table with the tray pressed to his chest in a curiously vulnerable slump.

"Am I supposed to eat this?" he asked; there was jam and butter on the table.

"No," England choked, tore the scone out of France' hand and slammed it back onto the serving plate. He left the room without another word, face red and feet stumbling over his carpeting in his hurry. By the time he returned, the tea had gone tepid and covered in a iridescent film.

The farce of an afternoon came to a slowly staggering end as he sipped tea and forced himself to swallow. England didn't say a word and France didn't either, and they sat there in the silence of their shared embarassment and concentration on the vain hope that the stale bread of the cucumber sandwiches could drown the bitterness of tea that had suffered the most abhorrent neglect.

France - tactfully - did not comment on England's red-rimmed eyes. It wouldn't be worth it, of course, to let this act of goodwill and symbolic fraternity end in a brawl, not after he had spent the entire afternoon biting his tongue. And if France had startled at the uncharacteristic nervousness which had quivered around England's very being when he brought out the scones, why, it was only natural to attribute it to this unnatural consequence of industrialisation and Prussia's little brother.

Not even England, after all, could put so much feeling into shyly muttering that he made them just now.

* * *

. England baked like a bad poet.

"Whatever it is you are trying to make, I won't eat it," said France from his seat at England's kitchen table, poking a teaspoon at the tea bag floating like a sack of industrial waste in his mug.

"Well, then it's good it's not _you_ I'm baking for!" England snapped while trying to beat some softness into dough that was crumbling between his fingers. He had not measured the ingredients, as if the alchemy of the kitchen could work on magic alone, as if it was not also a matter of chemistry. "As if I'd want to bother your poncy continental palate with respectable, British cooking."

"England, not even you can enjoy your cooking. Not even America does."

"America is hardly the authority on good dining. Or anything else of within any definition of 'proper'. Did you hear what that, that _friend_ of his is claiming? And the bloody idiot - "

"I heard," France muttered and watched in detached resignation as England struggled to form buns, and the miscreation of a dough kept falling apart between his fingers. France had learned to make the most delicate pastries from masters of the art, men whose likes would never be seen. Watching England bake his scones was like watching a child let loose in his mother's kitchen. Flour and dough crumbs were spread around England's feet, and England was purring a blaspheming litany that would have explained the outcome of his cooking all on its own if at least one of them had kept their faith.

France fished the tea bag out of the mug and dropped it into the mostly empty ashtray. England had finally surrendered what little pride could be left in his project, and taken to lift lumps of dough onto the baking pan and using his fingertips to press them into what could pass for cakes if to America, maybe, if you took away his glasses. They would be falling apart the moment they were lifted away, but France kept his tongue in check. There was no _sport_ in making fun of England's cooking.

When England was satisfied with this pathetic abuse of food, he put it into the oven - top shelf, and France vaguely wondered how it was that his house was still standing - and turned on the heat.

France would later remember nothing of the seconds between his taking notice of that, and when he was standing in front of England's stove with the baking pan in his hands and a livid England in his face. England was screaming. France could not muster any extra emotion to work himself up.

"You don't bake with a cold oven," he said, wonderfully numb after this display of lacking respect for all rules of good cooking.

"What in the name of Christ are you getting at?"

"You must always pre-heat the oven," France rephrased and sat the pan down before he turned and reached for the broom, "nothing bakes properly without steady heat. To make sure it cooks through, to get the perfect texture, you must always pre-heat the oven."

England looked pale when France started sweeping the floor in front of the sink. He didn't even notice that he was a mop away from laying claim to England's kitchen.

"That's rubbish," he said weakly, "I've never bothered with that, and I've gotten along perfectly fine." He didn't sound like he believed in what he was saying. France had to stop himself from reaching out and patting his shoulder.

"Try waiting another fifteen minutes," he said, and covered the pitiful lumps of flour and butter with a tea towel.

"Waste of electricity," said England.

"And bake them on the middle shelf. They'll burn if they are any higher than that."

"I knew that."

The scones fell apart when England tried to move them to a cooling rack, but their ragged edges at least revealed that they had been baked all the way through, with healthy brown tops that seemed to leave England enraptured. He ate his scones with raspberry jam and a curious silence. He only asked if France wanted any once, but France had known that they would by hard and crumbling already when England made the dough. He remained at the table with his mug of cold tea, just to watch England put piece after piece of disgusting food into his mouth, and looking like he could burst from happiness.

* * *

. The next time, France had found that the best way to do it was to tell Engand to invite him over for tea. He showed up two hours early to look through the contents of the host's fridge.

England had not been happy about coming home to find that France had thrown away a good thirty percent of the edibles in his kitchen, but France had merely flaunted a bottle of wine and demanded to see the recipe England used for his scones.

"You should've asked Scotland," England said fifteen minutes later, on his knees in front of drawer full of instruction booklets, "I got it from him."

"I'm sorry for making the assumption that you used it on a regular basis," said France, leaning his hip against the desk.

"Don't be daft," said England and shoved the drawer closed before yanking the next one open, "I've made them thousands of times. I know it by heart."

France, in the spirit of a benign and accepting teacher that England certainly needed, managed not to say anything.

When he got the scrap of paper shoved into his hands, it took another four minutes for the two of them to make out the handwriting that had little resemblance to England's neatly curved script, and might have suffered from a light spelling problem as well. It was little more than a list of a few base ingredients and a note on the bottom that said to beat the egg before adding it.

England looked sceptic when France gave him the edited version, which was three times longer and had it underlined thrice that he was to use butter, not margarine.

"That's decadent and wasteful," he said.

"It's the difference between edible food and good food," said France, "now turn on the oven and take the butter out of the fridge."

It was almost painful to see England dice butter with a bread knife, and his attempts at crumbling it into the flour was not elegant work. France also suspected that the result would have been far less predictable if he hadn't been there to keep watch and remdind England about following his recipe. But at least he measured this time, and the result was a dough that might not be quite as light and even as it would have been in France's hands, but which at least was smooth enough to be easily formed.

There were tears in England's eyes when they stood side by side and admired the day's job, which would probably still not be as tender as France would have liked it to be. But they were soft and warm and did not smell of anything that wasn't supposed to be in them. It was a batch of entirely passable scones, and even for a bread so simple and so desperately British, it had a value in that, if nothing else: it was such a difference from what France remembered England giving him that one day almost a century ago.

"See?" said France tentatively, "cooking is like all other sciences in this world. Follow the rules, and it will turn out okay."

England drew a shuddering breath, and picked up a still warm scone as if to test its feel in his hand. France wasn't sure if he had done something right or something wrong when England really _did_ start crying over his perfectly edible scones; he ended up comforting England in the way he did it best, and the scone came with them. There were breadcrumbs in the sheets afterwards.

* * *

. England tumbled out of bed with the determination of a man who had almost fallen asleep again; the hardwood floor against his bare feet mercilessly roused his consciousness as he padded into France's despicably large, despicably fashionable kitchen, full of spices that were surely poisonous and utensils that couldn't have any practical use.

Years of enviously watching France cook his dinners had made one thing certain: England knew his way around the cupboards and drawers. He turned on the stove. He remembered to measure the ingredients. He took care to keep the milk and the butter chilled. After he had set the timer, he even found a box of tea that France had paid preposterous sums for at some specialty shop.

It was a matter of pride, of course. A real Englishman would never take to French cooking, but for a Frenchman to teach a Briton how to prepare his own recipes was a shame beyond words. It was humiliating in the worst of ways, but England couldn't feel bad about it as he regarded the results of his efforts. At least as long as France wasn't gloating, but seemingly satisfied to let it pass without ever mentioning it again, except for when he'd be cooking and suddenly comment, out of the blue, about what it was that he was doing.

England, as a small favour, had refrained from complaining about everything that truly was wrong with the French kitchen. It was an agreeable truce: France shared unwanted secrets from his ludicruous cooking traditions, and England didn't deny that he was grateful for being shown how to make better food. The only problem was that France would not accept England's gratitude, or at least physical manifestation of it: France still would not eat scones, even the ones that he had directed himself. England wasn't sure if it was some ridiculous continental phobial of wholesome food or just France being difficult, but either option left an answer that was intolerable to his English pride.

That was why he accepted that the only serving tray that France owned was a perverse souvernir piece with the Eiffel Tower. It took some stacking, but he managed to fit tea pot and cups, plates and scones and a jar of honey on it, and he manouvered it into France's bedroom without accidents. France, sleeping like the mediterranean cretin that he was, did not wake up until England set a foot against his side and shoved him onto his back.

It was with a stab of something he didn't care to acknowledge that England pulled his foot down to make sure he stood safely, and France laid sprawled in the middle of his bed with the nightshirt and his foppishly long hair tousled around his body.

"I made breakfast," England announced, "and so help me, you are going to eat it."

"Is it Frosties again?" France made a face.

"No," England snapped, and would probably have yelled if he wasn't carrying the tray, "you made it abundantly clear that you will not eat that for breakfast any more."

He sat the tray down on top of some thick and undoubtedly perverted novel that France kept by his bed, and sat down on the bedside to pour the tea (perfectly brewed) and hand France the cup on the saucer. While France sipped his tea with a face still bleary from sleep, England parted a scone and dripped honey over it, muttered soomething about the absence of decent marmalade in this house, and picked the saucer out of France's hand and gave him the scones instead.

"This is the least romantic breakfast in bed I have ever had," France groused, and held the plate out for England to take it back.

"I told you to eat it!"

"Why?"

"Because I made it for you! With ingredients that you have personally bought, in a kitchen you have personally kept as clean as you like! It is a perfectly fine piece of baking."

France looked honestly taken back by the proclamation, and England hoped, _hoped_, that he hadn't sounded as wounded as he thought he might have done.

"You could just have woken me if you were hungry," France finally said with a sigh, and closed his eyes as if to brace himself before he bit off half the scone.

He didn't praise it. England had known that he wouldn't; he and France had known each other for far too long for false praise to be appreciated. France ate the scone he had been given, and England drank France's tea and didn't realise that he had done it before France held out the empty plate. Their eyes met, and England asked anyway and regretted it before he had finished speaking.

"Was it good?"

France held his gaze for a beat, and put the plate down in his lap before he reached for another one.

"It is better than store-bought," he admitted.

He waited a full two days before he started reminding England about whose achievement that was.


End file.
